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Some of you might be knowing me by now. I have been active on the site for the last one month. Came back from the exam few minutes back. Got a 680(85%). (Q:49-86%;V:35-73%). AWA:6(91%)

Have been clocking 680-720 on the GMAT prep consistently in the last one month. Was hoping I could beat the 700 margin on the test day. Alas, had to settle for a 680.

[highlight]Coming to my preparation:[/highlight]

First opened OG 12 in June. Spent some time on week days only,now and then, since May to Sept. Only towards mid Sept,I became serious and started to devote quality time for the GMAT.

OG's have been my best friends till I came across this site. Could get hold of OG 10,11 & 12 Verbal. So have been working on them. Though I created my acc on GMAT club in July, I was never active till November. When I was trying to search for some blogs on the net, I repeatedly tumbled onto this site. Then wondered, I think I am a member of this site as I keep getting updates from this site to my mail. Unfortunately, it was only 20 days before my exam.Then started to dig deep into the site and found volumes of information.

Learnt about the power score CR bible and RC 99 from this site 3 weeks before my exam. Ordered them immediately and started to work on them. Power score CR is by far the best book I have come across for the GMAT. The amount of detail it gives on how to answer the CR is amazing. Very sad that I couldn't get my hands onto the book a month earlier.

The passages from RC99 are a pretty good selection. Found the last 33 hard passages a bit too hard to my liking and didn't do them.

For SC, I followed Manhattan SC book. Its a very good book, but fails to provide quality practice questions. SC was and still my main weakness. OG was my main source of questions.

Coming to Quant, being a structural Engineer, I didn't spend much time on Q. Found the questions of Bunel very very useful, especially the 700+ questions. Went through OG qant, NOVA GMAT bible Quant.

[highlight]Tests:[/highlight]

I gave MGMAT and 800 series. Best performance was 680 and worse was 620 on MGMAT. On 800 tests, consistently got around 670. The explanations given by MGMAT for few of the questions was very impressive and learnt a few tricks from those solutions. So I am pretty sure, the Quant material of Manhattan would be very useful.

[highlight]Test Day[/highlight]

Had my exam at 12.00 hrs UAE time. Reached the exam center by 11.30. AWA was routine topics. Didn't have much of a problem.

Q started off well. Got some few tricky questions around the questions 15-25. Tricky, but not tough. Got a Q on parabolas as my 36th q. So assumed that I was doing good. Guessed around 2 questions of the total 37 questions.

V started off with few SC then CR's and then got a couple of medium size RC's. Got one bold type CR's. Made me think that I was doing good. Then around the 25th question, got a very nasty RC. It was very lengthy and I wasted a lot of time on that. As a result of which, I was left with only 18 min for my last 12 questions. Had to hurry up and didn't read the last RC in detail and answered the questions. The last of my 3 questions I read superficially and answered. I think I was doing reasonably well in Verbal till that nasty RC, which upset my timing.

Had to spend another half an hour answering those stupid mock questions. Just breezed through them to the score page. Was hoping to see a 7 digit score. But felt short.

[highlight]Lesson's Learnt:[/highlight]

I need to improve my timing a bit. Even in Quant, rushed through few of the questions. Verbal, definitely time was the factor which got down a 700+ to 680 on the test.SC was and is my weakness. Didn't use error log at all.

[highlight]Plan of actions:[/highlight]

Planning to do the GMAT club quant tests. Want to get that one more point in Q if possible. ( Hope I get some discount offer. )I need some quality material for SC's Would apprecaite some suggestions on this front. More so, i need some good collection of questions. To start with, planning to work on the 1000 SC's.Will need to work on improving my accuracy on CR.I have the LSAT RC material. Didn't have time to work on it earlier. Plan to finish it off. Plan to systematically use error log and analyze my results this time.

I am definitely gonna retake the test in a months time. Have a lot of commitments from the job front in the coming month. So wont be able to take it in December and it has to be some time in Jan. Was desperately trying to get a good score so that I could apply for the second round. Will try my luck with a school or two from the lower tier, just to get a feel of essay writing and all.

Yeah, my post doesn't sound very entertaining. Folks who have already taken the exam and clocked a 680 or 690 would know. Almost there, but not really. Was hoping to crack the 700 mark. A bit disappointed. But I wont give up.

Hope my post is useful to some of you folks. Will appreciate suggestions and help on the SC front. I think I can manage the CR and RC. Can I subscribe to,only verbal part of Manhattan or Kewton material? I definitely don't need the quant part. Please advise.

Regards,Praveen

Last edited by mattapraveen on 25 Nov 2010, 02:22, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks rux10. Yeah I am also hoping for the same. Looking for some good quality SC material. I ahve exhausted all the OG,Grail and Manhattan. Need some question bank with hard SC qs. Any suggestions? Read about GMAT club verbal book on this site. How good is it?

Not sure how good the gmat grammar book is because I haven't read it yet. Looking forward to getting stuck into it for my next GMAT attempt! It's only $10 so you may aswel go for it. If you pick up a handful of useful/applicable tips it will have been worth it. It's GMAT club related so chances are it's gonna be awesome.

I bought access to the GMAT pill for sentence correction. I didn't use it properly but could see the value in the tutorials. I like more instructorial based styles of learning. Check out the sample classes, you may enjoy it as an alternative.

Apart from those, i'm sure there are other books you can get with decent question banks. Just search the verbal book review thread.

Yeah... I am still to get over the hang over from the exam....so holding myself back from buying any tests or material in an adrenaline rush. Going through the posts on this site regarding verbal.

I have decided to tread the tough path. So choose to tackle the LSAT CR and RC. Not able to find a SC book of the same league which would have some hard testing questions and sound logic. Manhattan SC and SC Grail are good, but I personally feel they can take you only to a certain level... like my 35 Verbal score.

As of now decided to buy the GMAT club tests and GMAT Club verbal book. Still brooding on the SC. If I come across anything worth mentioning, will inform you.

Well with a combo of LSAT level verbal prep, GMAT club tests and the GMAT Club verbal book you should have a great chance of reaching the 700 mark and probably go a good bit further! I'll also repost here if I come across something potentially useful. Best of luck! _________________

I am INCREDIBLY happy for you. It sounds lame, but I really am. A 680 is a perfect first score. I mean, you will break the 700 barrier easily.

I have a question for you, are you sure you can't try to take the test in 1 months time and still apply round 2? Coudln't you cram 2 hours a day for studying after work? I say that because everything is so fresh in your mind it might be good to just go for it again without letting the holidays go by or having to wait 1.5 year to start b-school...

Thanks for the wishes. I have already started my prep. Brought the GMAT club tests.

First,there are no free slots available in UAE in the month of December for the exam.

Second, I work in an oil and gas firm. So I might be required to go offshore and work in Saudi in the month of December, so I am thinking of taking it when I come back to Dubai in Jan.

I really would love to have a shot in the second round, but things don't look that rosy for me on the work front. Why are you suggesting that I will have to wait for another year to attend B school?

I was hoping to get a good score and may be apply in the R3. Yeah, I hear, R 3 is a bit of lottery, but I feel I gotta take my chances. Please do drop in your suggestions on me applying in R3. I am a bit worried about applying in R3 actually. But I am sure I can get a 720-730 by then.

Howz ur prep going on? Would like some help on Verbal part if you can.

I would not apply Round 3. Simply because it is a very tough round and I aiming for the Top 10 schools. I think that for R3, you have to be a superstar with an incredibly different background and a 750+. I might be wrong, but it's only my impression. If you are not aiming for a Top 10 school, your 680 is fine so I still don't think it would be a good idea to apply RD 3 with a higher score. I would rather apply with a 680 in RD 2 than a 720 in RD 3. I think 680 can already get you in a few top 10 schools if you have a diverse background and a really good story. Maybe not H/W/S, but you probably have a shot at schools such as MIT, Kellog, Booth and Columbia. I've always heard that R3 is a horrible slot and I don't think a 20/30+ points in the GMAT would make a difference. If you really want to go in 2011, I would tell you to apply with your 680 or can't you take the test on Jan 3-5? That would still give you a chance to send the scores for RD 2.

I started prepping again today. I was working on my calendar and it doesn't seem like I have enough time to go over everything I want to go over, so I will have to prioritize. I'm going to go through the concepts of arithmetics and algebra again as they are very important and then practice 600/700 questions. I will also work on an error every day. As for verbal, I will look over SC twice a week. Unfortunetly, I have to prioritize quant.

I will take my first CAT in about 10 days and will take the GMAT Club diagnostic test next Friday.

As for practicing verbal, I'd say you should definetly use Manhattan's SC book. Everyone says it is the best book on the subject. Do you own it? Could you buy it?

I have so much material, it's tough to prioritize!!

I already have a few essays ready, but in parallel, I will also work on my essays. I work from 9am-8pm and although it's hard to study at work, I can definetly reserve 1 hour per day to work on my essays.

And if on Dec 20th I don't get the score I want, it will probably be RD 1 of 2011 for me. I don't even want to think about that possibility, but we have to keep our options open.

Mattapraveen, Great score, congrats!What was your GMATprep score breakdown for Q and V?

I consistently scored 49 on the GMAT prep Q,on my last 6 trials with the GMAT prep. I did some total 12 tests on those GMAT Prep software. My verbal was more erractic. It varied between 33 to 38 on my last 6 tests. My total score varied between 680-720 in the last 6 tests

hello praveen!! 680 huh?? not bad. . but its a little off your target score right?? But a month can change a lot of things. . listen to the good advice of whiplash in your previous post. . keep an updated error log and try to learn from the mistakes. .

hello praveen!! 680 huh?? not bad. . but its a little off your target score right?? But a month can change a lot of things. . listen to the good advice of whiplash in your previous post. . keep an updated error log and try to learn from the mistakes. .

First things first, congrats for you good score. I'm not any expert, but fine tuning score/results is an art as Performance Tuning is an art in IT:). You can definitely cross 700 mark but you have to try many different options in practically every section. All the very best and keep us informed with your progress. _________________

Got a 6.0 on AWA. To be honest.... I am a bit surprised......wrote the argument essay very well... but found it hard to find points for the issue essay. But made sure the essay was well structured. Well it looks like, that's what matters.... a good structured essay.

Some of you might be knowing me by now. I have been active on the site for the last one month. Came back from the exam few minutes back. Got a 680(85%). (Q:49-86%;V:35-73%). AWA:6(91%)

Have been clocking 680-720 on the GMAT prep consistently in the last one month. Was hoping I could beat the 700 margin on the test day. Alas, had to settle for a 680.

[highlight]Coming to my preparation:[/highlight]

First opened OG 12 in June. Spent some time on week days only,now and then, since May to Sept. Only towards mid Sept,I became serious and started to devote quality time for the GMAT.

OG's have been my best friends till I came across this site. Could get hold of OG 10,11 & 12 Verbal. So have been working on them. Though I created my acc on GMAT club in July, I was never active till November. When I was trying to search for some blogs on the net, I repeatedly tumbled onto this site. Then wondered, I think I am a member of this site as I keep getting updates from this site to my mail. Unfortunately, it was only 20 days before my exam.Then started to dig deep into the site and found volumes of information.

Learnt about the power score CR bible and RC 99 from this site 3 weeks before my exam. Ordered them immediately and started to work on them. Power score CR is by far the best book I have come across for the GMAT. The amount of detail it gives on how to answer the CR is amazing. Very sad that I couldn't get my hands onto the book a month earlier.

The passages from RC99 are a pretty good selection. Found the last 33 hard passages a bit too hard to my liking and didn't do them.

For SC, I followed Manhattan SC book. Its a very good book, but fails to provide quality practice questions. SC was and still my main weakness. OG was my main source of questions.

Coming to Quant, being a structural Engineer, I didn't spend much time on Q. Found the questions of Bunel very very useful, especially the 700+ questions. Went through OG qant, NOVA GMAT bible Quant.

[highlight]Tests:[/highlight]

I gave MGMAT and 800 series. Best performance was 680 and worse was 620 on MGMAT. On 800 tests, consistently got around 670. The explanations given by MGMAT for few of the questions was very impressive and learnt a few tricks from those solutions. So I am pretty sure, the Quant material of Manhattan would be very useful.

[highlight]Test Day[/highlight]

Had my exam at 12.00 hrs UAE time. Reached the exam center by 11.30. AWA was routine topics. Didn't have much of a problem.

Q started off well. Got some few tricky questions around the questions 15-25. Tricky, but not tough. Got a Q on parabolas as my 36th q. So assumed that I was doing good. Guessed around 2 questions of the total 37 questions.

V started off with few SC then CR's and then got a couple of medium size RC's. Got one bold type CR's. Made me think that I was doing good. Then around the 25th question, got a very nasty RC. It was very lengthy and I wasted a lot of time on that. As a result of which, I was left with only 18 min for my last 12 questions. Had to hurry up and didn't read the last RC in detail and answered the questions. The last of my 3 questions I read superficially and answered. I think I was doing reasonably well in Verbal till that nasty RC, which upset my timing.

Had to spend another half an hour answering those stupid mock questions. Just breezed through them to the score page. Was hoping to see a 7 digit score. But felt short.

[highlight]Lesson's Learnt:[/highlight]

I need to improve my timing a bit. Even in Quant, rushed through few of the questions. Verbal, definitely time was the factor which got down a 700+ to 680 on the test.SC was and is my weakness. Didn't use error log at all.

[highlight]Plan of actions:[/highlight]

Planning to do the GMAT club quant tests. Want to get that one more point in Q if possible. ( Hope I get some discount offer. )I need some quality material for SC's Would apprecaite some suggestions on this front. More so, i need some good collection of questions. To start with, planning to work on the 1000 SC's.Will need to work on improving my accuracy on CR.I have the LSAT RC material. Didn't have time to work on it earlier. Plan to finish it off. Plan to systematically use error log and analyze my results this time.

I am definitely gonna retake the test in a months time. Have a lot of commitments from the job front in the coming month. So wont be able to take it in December and it has to be some time in Jan. Was desperately trying to get a good score so that I could apply for the second round. Will try my luck with a school or two from the lower tier, just to get a feel of essay writing and all.

Yeah, my post doesn't sound very entertaining. Folks who have already taken the exam and clocked a 680 or 690 would know. Almost there, but not really. Was hoping to crack the 700 mark. A bit disappointed. But I wont give up.

Hope my post is useful to some of you folks. Will appreciate suggestions and help on the SC front. I think I can manage the CR and RC. Can I subscribe to,only verbal part of Manhattan or Kewton material? I definitely don't need the quant part. Please advise.

Regards,Praveen

I had my test today as well -- same split but my score is 690 - ive seen people with 700 with the same split...kind of weird!...anyway that apart...

I found myself rushing through the verbal section at the end - liberally guessing the answers..i think thats where I lost GMAT..thats where IVe been losing GMAT in all my practice tests (ive ranged between 630 to 750 in different CATs) ... on the real test, i saw a boldfaced CR on 18th so I think I wasn't doing as bad...

Need to improve both - Q and V ... especially stamina part of it...I am in the same boat as you ...Gearing up for a retake but exhausted GPREP, MGMAT and KNEWTON tests already...will use gmatclub maths tests for quant - found some really weird questions in the test...infact the very first question was a mind boggling one...

When are you planning to book the next appointment? _________________

The night is at its darkest just before the dawn... never, ever give up!

Some of you might be knowing me by now. I have been active on the site for the last one month. Came back from the exam few minutes back. Got a 680(85%). (Q:49-86%;V:35-73%). AWA:6(91%)

Have been clocking 680-720 on the GMAT prep consistently in the last one month. Was hoping I could beat the 700 margin on the test day. Alas, had to settle for a 680.

[highlight]Coming to my preparation:[/highlight]

First opened OG 12 in June. Spent some time on week days only,now and then, since May to Sept. Only towards mid Sept,I became serious and started to devote quality time for the GMAT.

OG's have been my best friends till I came across this site. Could get hold of OG 10,11 & 12 Verbal. So have been working on them. Though I created my acc on GMAT club in July, I was never active till November. When I was trying to search for some blogs on the net, I repeatedly tumbled onto this site. Then wondered, I think I am a member of this site as I keep getting updates from this site to my mail. Unfortunately, it was only 20 days before my exam.Then started to dig deep into the site and found volumes of information.

Learnt about the power score CR bible and RC 99 from this site 3 weeks before my exam. Ordered them immediately and started to work on them. Power score CR is by far the best book I have come across for the GMAT. The amount of detail it gives on how to answer the CR is amazing. Very sad that I couldn't get my hands onto the book a month earlier.

The passages from RC99 are a pretty good selection. Found the last 33 hard passages a bit too hard to my liking and didn't do them.

For SC, I followed Manhattan SC book. Its a very good book, but fails to provide quality practice questions. SC was and still my main weakness. OG was my main source of questions.

Coming to Quant, being a structural Engineer, I didn't spend much time on Q. Found the questions of Bunel very very useful, especially the 700+ questions. Went through OG qant, NOVA GMAT bible Quant.

[highlight]Tests:[/highlight]

I gave MGMAT and 800 series. Best performance was 680 and worse was 620 on MGMAT. On 800 tests, consistently got around 670. The explanations given by MGMAT for few of the questions was very impressive and learnt a few tricks from those solutions. So I am pretty sure, the Quant material of Manhattan would be very useful.

[highlight]Test Day[/highlight]

Had my exam at 12.00 hrs UAE time. Reached the exam center by 11.30. AWA was routine topics. Didn't have much of a problem.

Q started off well. Got some few tricky questions around the questions 15-25. Tricky, but not tough. Got a Q on parabolas as my 36th q. So assumed that I was doing good. Guessed around 2 questions of the total 37 questions.

V started off with few SC then CR's and then got a couple of medium size RC's. Got one bold type CR's. Made me think that I was doing good. Then around the 25th question, got a very nasty RC. It was very lengthy and I wasted a lot of time on that. As a result of which, I was left with only 18 min for my last 12 questions. Had to hurry up and didn't read the last RC in detail and answered the questions. The last of my 3 questions I read superficially and answered. I think I was doing reasonably well in Verbal till that nasty RC, which upset my timing.

Had to spend another half an hour answering those stupid mock questions. Just breezed through them to the score page. Was hoping to see a 7 digit score. But felt short.

[highlight]Lesson's Learnt:[/highlight]

I need to improve my timing a bit. Even in Quant, rushed through few of the questions. Verbal, definitely time was the factor which got down a 700+ to 680 on the test.SC was and is my weakness. Didn't use error log at all.

[highlight]Plan of actions:[/highlight]

Planning to do the GMAT club quant tests. Want to get that one more point in Q if possible. ( Hope I get some discount offer. )I need some quality material for SC's Would apprecaite some suggestions on this front. More so, i need some good collection of questions. To start with, planning to work on the 1000 SC's.Will need to work on improving my accuracy on CR.I have the LSAT RC material. Didn't have time to work on it earlier. Plan to finish it off. Plan to systematically use error log and analyze my results this time.

I am definitely gonna retake the test in a months time. Have a lot of commitments from the job front in the coming month. So wont be able to take it in December and it has to be some time in Jan. Was desperately trying to get a good score so that I could apply for the second round. Will try my luck with a school or two from the lower tier, just to get a feel of essay writing and all.

Yeah, my post doesn't sound very entertaining. Folks who have already taken the exam and clocked a 680 or 690 would know. Almost there, but not really. Was hoping to crack the 700 mark. A bit disappointed. But I wont give up.

Hope my post is useful to some of you folks. Will appreciate suggestions and help on the SC front. I think I can manage the CR and RC. Can I subscribe to,only verbal part of Manhattan or Kewton material? I definitely don't need the quant part. Please advise.

Regards,Praveen

I had my test today as well -- same split but my score is 690 - ive seen people with 700 with the same split...kind of weird!...anyway that apart...

I found myself rushing through the verbal section at the end - liberally guessing the answers..i think thats where I lost GMAT..thats where IVe been losing GMAT in all my practice tests (ive ranged between 630 to 750 in different CATs) ... on the real test, i saw a boldfaced CR on 18th so I think I wasn't doing as bad...

Need to improve both - Q and V ... especially stamina part of it...I am in the same boat as you ...Gearing up for a retake but exhausted GPREP, MGMAT and KNEWTON tests already...will use gmatclub maths tests for quant - found some really weird questions in the test...infact the very first question was a mind boggling one...

When are you planning to book the next appointment?

Some time in Jan. There are no slots available till 6th Jan in Dubai, where I work. Looks like I cant make it in R2 this year.... I mean 2011. I too got the bold face CR some where in the late 10's or early 20's.... The margin of error in V is so less that we need to do well till the 41st question. I got one big RC towards the end..... In the gmat prep tests when ever I was doing well, I used to get a long RC... So when in the exam I got a bold CR and Long RC, I was optimistic of getting a good score.....but got a 35... 35 is not bad either....but still goes on to say how much higher accuracy one needs, to get into the 40+ marrier in V.

By the way..... I love your signature....."Nights the darkest....." one of my favorite line....

Was hoping I could beat the 700 margin on the test day. Alas, had to settle for a 680.

Why are you re-taking the exam? Is there big difference between 680 and 700? Is it just a psychological margin? (because most top10 schools have their average around 710-720 anyway)

Though I am not from the most competitive segment"Indian IT male", I am still from the Indian male applicant pool which is very deep and very competitive.

Though the median and average score of the top 10 schools is around 710-720..its very hard to get a call with anything below 700 or even 720...unless you have excellent acads, work ex, extra curriculars etc. Have a look in the admissions forum..people applying for the top 10 have scores of around 750 as a minimum.

Though we tend to aim for a 700+, I personally feel a 720 or a 730 is a must if one is aiming for anything in the top 10 and 750 to get a call from HWS, if you are from the Indian male applicant pool. I might be wrong, but its my conclusion after looking at the B school application forum.